Why Opposition MPs Voted Against Ratification of Nuclear Bill

This is one type of nuclear power plant, but they come in different sizes depending on the investment

This week, Parliament voted for the ratification of the Vienna Convention on Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage, a 1963 treaty that governs issues of liability in cases of nuclear accident.

Opposition Members of Parliament
from the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda voted against the ratification
because, it had been made clear that the ratification of this treaty will pave
way for the establishment of a Nuclear Power Plant since Rwanda signed a
Nuclear deal with Russia on 6th December 2018.

We are very concerned with the
safety and environmental-social impacts of a nuclear power plant in Rwanda
because the area size of the country is too small to accommodate the risks in
case of a nuclear accident as half or the whole population could be affected.
The danger could extend to neighbouring countries.

It would be a total disaster for
Rwanda to be drawn into this nuclear industry. The industry is dying, which is
why the countries stuck with this legacy technology are desperate to push it
into new markets. The applications listed (agriculture, health etc) are used as
bait to try and get countries hooked on the ‘modernising’ potential of the
technology, with a view to eventually using it for electricity
generation.

Rwanda has a small dispersed
electricity grid serving decentralised regional communities. This is the worst
possible network configuration for a nuclear plant, which are overwhelmingly
very large and inflexible (in the 1000MW range) and totally unsuited to our
situation. They are also, by far, the most expensive form of electricity
generation except for perhaps just shoving piles of money into a furnace, and
they consume and contaminate very large amounts of water for cooling.

Recent accidents like Fukushima in
Japan, have proved the desperate trouble the industry is in, on grounds of
safety, unresolved waste management, decommissioning, and most of all,
cost. It will cost over 365 billion dollars to deal with the effects of Fukushima,
that kind of budget Rwanda cannot afford to spend.

The way the Vienna treaty which we
voted against works, the operator (of the reactor or research facility or
whatever) is strictly liable for an accident up to $5 million. In the case of
accidents involving nuclear technology, which can involve evacuations of tens
of thousands of people, $5 million would be used up in the first few minutes.

The convention thus compels
operators to seek third party insurers. Quite famously, no insurer anywhere in the
world will insure against the total liability of a nuclear accident, because
the risks are simply open ended and impossible to calculate. Thus, insurers
will only take on a small amount of risk. The taxpayers of Rwanda will own the
rest of the risk of permanent radioactive contamination.

This Vienna Convention is silent on
the costs of decommissioning nuclear facilities, which can be more expensive
than setting them up.

Reports on accident frequency
globally, completely destroy the industry’s claims to be a safe technology, as
we were informed by the Minister of Infrastructure.

The writer is the President of the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda and Member of Parliament

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